Hello Everyone:I have a pilot license and thus bicycle steering is counter-intuitive when sailing the trifoiler. Therefore I was thinking about changing to airplane steering. The manual "highly recommends" leaving the boat in bicycle steering style. Just wanted to know if there is a technical reason for that recommendation, or the disadvantages of airplane steering so I can make up my mind about the issue.

I too am a pilot and found bicycle steering counter intuitive. I have converted my boat to airplane steering. It took ~ 1 hour and can easily be converted back. From a mechanical standpoint the conversion reduced forces on some pulley blocks under the deck. I can't think why the manual said not to convert other than perhaps standardization and sharing boats. I think 2 or 3 other boats have been converted. One conversion was because the owners legs had a hard time reaching the pedals so he wanted to move the rudder assembly aft. Conversion to airplane steering made it easier to make this modification. See details of the conversion on the trifoiler wiki site. www.trifoiler.info/mediahttp://www.trifoiler.info/media/index.p ... e_Steering

Guillermo, pls post your boat information pics etc. on the wiki site in the owners section. email me at frank%simrex.com replacing % with @ if you have difficulty in creating an account.